There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff and those who can’t stand it when their teams get “stuck” with the early window.
As someone who covers the games for a living, there is nothing better than wrapping up a game at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon and having enough time to catch the evening slate of games going on elsewhere. However, for most fans, the thought of the season’s biggest games getting played at noon sends people into a fit.
Die-hard fans have reason to be upset with this, too, as the atmosphere for an evening game is typically way more memorable than the games that kick off at 11:00 a.m. CT. Unfortunately, it’s not left up to the fans or the schools when it comes to naming a kickoff time for a game. That responsibility falls on the networks.
One of the other frustrating parts about the current setup for college football is the exclusivity that some networks have with conferences. ESPN has exclusive rights to the SEC. FOX is the same way with the Big Ten. Because of that exclusivity, we’re limited to having all of the good games in similar time slots, forcing fans to choose one game over another.
Josh Pate plans to fix this when he is eventually named the commissioner of college football.
“When I’m college football commissioner, the way I hope this works is we burn all the rights agreements,” Pate said in his most recent show. “We start from scratch, and every network has a piece of college football, but you have a draft every week. So, there is no exclusive deal. Like ESPN does not have an exclusive deal with the SEC. FOX doesn’t have an exclusive deal with the Big Ten.
“Everybody has a college football deal. NBC, CBS, Netflix, Amazon, and FOX are at the table every week, and we’re rotating, depending on how much you’ve bought in, but you get to draft games every week.”
One of the other benefits of a model like Pate is suggesting is the best analysts and play-by-play crews aren’t limited to just one or two conferences.
“So, what could happen is one week [Chris] Fowler and [Kirk] Herbstreit could be calling a Big 12 game, then the next week they’re doing an SEC game, but [Joel] Klatt and Gus Johnson—same thing. They could be doing a Penn State game one week, they could be doing a Texas A&M game the next week. It would wreak havoc on their travel schedule, but they get compensated handsomely for this.
“What you would get—finally—as a Penn State fan or an Ohio State fan, is get an opportunity for your games to happen in prime time. And let me tell you something. Yes, this matters for fans; yes, it matters for the viewers. Do you know how hard it is for those recruiting and personnel departments to take kids—who are playing high school football games on Friday night—and get them to State College, Pennsylvania in time for a noon kickoff the next day? You ever try to fly into State College? No—you can’t.”
